I'm sorry about the Cymbalta...I couldn't take that drug to begin with...and I know from the other board that it is very hard to withdrawl from.

I am so grateful that you and Cath talked to me, and that others responded...I am talking with my freind again, and that feels good...we haven't talked about the group, so that is good.

I have to admit, as I have responded to others on the other board, that I'm trying to be uplifting and supportive...I think we all want to be connected. We feel so much disconnection with the outside world with this illness...I feel like I don't have a "group"...which is funny, because I have responed to others saying that they belong, and are cared about...

So, why is it so hard to take that to heart...easier to tell someone else, than heed one's own words.

The other thing is...I am trying to have a more positive attitude in life, no matter how I feel...I don't want it to be taken as being a pollyanna...just uplifting.

I don't want people to mistake my kindness, for weakness.

I don't want to have a hard heart anymore in my life...it seems if people detect "vulnerability" (being kind, seeing that as weak)...sometimes they go for the jugular...I realize this says more about them, than me...but maybe today is harder, because I am also feeling more symtomatic (major headachs the past days that seem realted to me adding supplements, changing diet)

I wish for more harmony than discord in life...I feel we all with this disease react to that kind of stress.

Take care De...I pray that you will be feeling better as the drug detoxes out of your body.

It's good that you are talking with your friend again. She is going to need you.

As for now I would steer clear of disscussing the (pink eleaphant) in the room, but for sure the day will come.

It's not so odd to feel like you don't have a group. I started on the RA/FM boards because I have RA/ FM / and a few more of the alphabet soup diseases. ( as I call them ). I was checking out different sites and came here.

I felt like this was my place. And I feel like you're apart of this board also. It is so different here, if you show weakness no one will attack, only offer to help any way they can. Because we have all been there.

I really have to think on how to say this...but here goes. I know that evil is among us and he works so much harder when we are close to God or coming back or just when we plain don't feel well. He sees the hole in our armor.

If he can make you feel like you don't belong, he knows he's winning. You have a good heart and I think you have been listening as Jesus has been talking to you. We just have got to remember that Jesus is not the only one talking to us.

This may sound a little strange but some how it is what I felt for a long time.( I hope the others on this board will comment on this,also). Anyway here goes.

When we get these diseases unlike any others, it forces to grieve and mourn the death of the person we have known and been all our lives. We can't go back that person is gone.

We are someone we don't know and it does take us time to meet and accept and even like the person we have become. We had our entire lives to develope into the person we were and in a split second they ask us to be this new person.

I was very hard-hearted, and yet protective might be a better word. I didn't let anyone close to this new person I was. I tried to act the way the old person I thought I was, would act. Anyways as the song says " they shake their heads and say you've changed". Oh ya...we have changed.

It is eye opening and soul opening. I'm so sorry for rambling like this. I've never told any of this to anyone before. So maybe it is you that God has sent for me not viseversa or maybe both. Blessings, De